After years of planning and construction, Mountain Park Senior Living finally opened its doors on Thursday as the first residents began moving into their apartments.
Mountain Park Senior Living is a 138-apartment senior living community at 4475 E. Knox Road, with apartments ranging from 398 square feet to 1,200 square feet.
The company behind the community, Spectrum Retirement Communities, LLC, has been meeting with the Ahwatukee community every step of the way to provide the best possible care for seniors. Now, it is all coming together. On March 1 the first residents began moving in to the independent portion of the community. The 60 independent care apartments have been 100 percent leased with about 20 people on the waiting list, according to April Leathers, outreach coordinator for Mountain Park.
“We have people 100 percent ready to move in,” Leathers said. “That’s exciting and phenomenal because not many communities open up with that. I think as soon as our assisted living license comes about in April to May, it will just be even better.”
Mountain Park Senior Living has 60 apartments for assisted living and 18 for memory care. Those sections will be ready to open once the state of Arizona completes a review and approves the license. Leathers said many of the residents already signed up to move in have chosen Mountain Park in order to be closer to family in Ahwatukee Foothills, or are past Ahwatukee residents who had to move away to communities with more services. Now that Mountain Park is offering the care they need, they are excited to come back.
“A lot of these seniors have been in Ahwatukee for years and they have built relationships with their neighbors, friends, the churches, and everybody is so connected with everyone,” Leathers said. “As seniors have aged and have needed that next step, they’ve had to move out of Ahwatukee. A lot have gone to Tempe or Chandler and that kind of takes them away from their home. Their friends may not be able to drive that far because of their health issues, maybe there isn’t transportation options to bring them back to church services with their friends. That’s taken them out of their home. Here we are, we’re right there and we’re so close their friends can pick them up, or we’ve had some of the churches talk about having their church transportation come pick up the seniors. It’s nice because they’re still able to stay in Ahwatukee.”
Leathers said there will be a home health care company on site that will provide care to independent residents who may need a little extra help from day to day, but are not quite ready to transition into assisted living.
For more information on Mountain Park Senior Living, visit mountainparkseniorliving.com or call (480) 893-1200.
• Contact writer: (480) 898-7914 or ahurtado@ahwatukee.com
